“He has been wounded,” Grégoire growled around his fangs.
“With silver. Like you. Eli cut his throat and shot him. Don’t tell my partner, but the wound wouldn’t have been lethal. It entered the temple, missed the brain, and came out the other side. It blinded Le Batard, but his optic nerves will probably heal in seconds. Throat too. He’ll be hungry.”
Grégoire laughed and the sound traced along my spine like jagged sleet from outside. A glacial hatred centuries in the making. “So long as he can see me when I kill him, I will be happy.”
“I’m leaving you in time. I’ll be slipping out. Don’t play with your supper too long. Leo is under attack at HQ. We could use you and Sabina and Gee there.”
“Attack? Our enemies are here.”
“Factions?” I asked.
Grégoire snarled, “Oui. And Titus would use them all.”
I dropped Grégoire’s hand, leaving him in real time, staring at his tormentor. I hefted Louis’ body over my shoulder. I carried him through the warehouse, pausing for a moment over Bruiser, knowing he was alive, seeing how well he was healing, and then trotted into the night.
Back at the SUV, I spotted Eli, his legendary badass calm long gone. His mouth was contorted in fury as he shouted. Droplets of spittle hung on the air; his breath was a cloud of condensation in front of his face. I was pretty sure he was cursing me.
I dumped Louis on the ground and went to stand by Eli. I touched him and he whirled out of time, into the Gray Between. I caught his arm as he finished his scream, which was inventive and foul. “No pizza for you tonight,” I said.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Neither.” I opened the front door, which may have warped it in its frame as it pulled too fast through time, deposited him in the car, and slammed the door. Sometimes I loved the incredible strength of my half-form. Okay. All the time.
In back, I lifted the hatch, tossed Louis in and closed it. Letting the Gray Between go, I opened the passenger door and climbed in. Eli grabbed my hand. “Jane? What the fu—funny bone of Satan. You’re okay?”
“I’m . . .” I stopped and touched my stomach. “I’m amazingly good.” I touched my fangs and smoothed my pelted face. “Hunky dory.” I pointed out at the weather. “Right as rain.”
“Ha-ha. You ever carry me out of a fight again and I’ll break your neck.”
I play-socked his upper arm. “I love you too. Update on HQ?”
“Alex? You got that?” he asked his cell.
“I got it. You can break her neck tomorrow. For now, we got more problems at HQ. Unknown vamps came in through the side entrance again but disappeared. Seems there’s a hidden stairway in the brick passageway leading from the side entrance, one you can see with a four-thousand-lumen flashlight. Once you’re beneath the building.”
“Another passageway we didn’t know about,” I hazarded.
“Yeah and it opens straight in Leo’s bedroom. Macario and Gualterio Cardona knew about it. Just the two of them came in. They attacked Leo in a hidden lair, a tiny room off his bedroom, trying to take him away with them. He was better, but not healed. He was able to fight them off, but they hurt him bad.”
My heart might have stopped, but he continued. “Wrassler was on guard on Leo’s room and heard the commotion. He broke the door down.”
“Get Wrassler on conference.” I looked back at the metal fence around the compound, seeing lights moving in the parking lot. I needed to get back there. Now.
Alex said, “Wrassler, I have Jane and Eli on conference. I was telling them you got to Leo before the MOC took the shadow bridge to vampy hell. How is he now?”
Wrassler said, “Katie and Bethany are with him, healing him.”
“What?” I said. “Wait. Did Leo feed and read Troll? Katie’s primo?”
“No. His injuries weren’t bad enough for Leo. He was passed off to a lesser Mithran.”
“Crap!” I shouted. “Get someone in there. Katie’s sister is a prisoner of Le Batard. He turned her against Leo!”
Wrassler cursed and a clatter came over the connection as he shouted for reinforcements. “On my way to the lair,” he yelled back into the phone. “Janie! Are you one hundred percent sure of this? A false accusation against the heir of Clan Pellissier, who is also the heir of the Master of the City, is a certain death sentence.” Wrassler sounded short of breath, a very big man, still in physical therapy, running on his prosthetic leg. “Janie? How sure?” he demanded.
I didn’t know how to answer. If I was wrong . . . “Sure enough to kill both of them myself, not sure enough to risk you. So don’t make an accusation. Just show up and stand there, unless Leo’s in danger. We have video of the woman known as Madam Spy, Alesha Fonteneau, in chains, coming ashore with a small group of unknown vamps in the storm. Madam Spy is Katie’s sister. She looked bad. Bethany, on the other hand, has probably been working with the Europeans, or a faction of them, for centuries. She always wanted the Blood Cross— Crap. Get someone to the vamp cemetery to guard Sabina’s stash. If Leo’s enemies get the Blood Cross—”
Wrassler interrupted with orders for a security unit to take motorcycles and back up the security team at the burial grounds.
I listened as he gave instructions to his crew and heard the sounds of wood splintering as they took down the door to Leo’s room. “Alex. I need to know where the Deadly Duo, the Cardona brothers, are, right now.”
“Working on it,” he said. “They don’t know the warehouse was taken, so they may be on the way there.”
Hope shot into my throat, but I strangled it. “Right. Something’s going to go our way. The bad guys are going to walk right up to us and I’m going to kill them. Really?”
“Okay. Snark away if it makes you feel better,” Alex said, sounding more adult than I did. “Just stay put until I find them. I got three people at HQ working with me on traffic cams and security video. We’ll find them.”
“Where’s Brute?” Eli asked.
“Haven’t seen him or Pea. Or Bean,” I said. “I’m going back in. I need to bring out Bruiser.”
I left the uncertain warmth of the SUV and leaped the gate. On the other side I took the oversized padlock in my oversized hands and twisted it until the hasp broke off. I shoved open the swinging door and waggled my fingers at Eli. He started the SUV and drove into the compound. I trotted back for my team. Gee, Derek, and Edmund were standing in the parking lot, in the protection of a food truck awning they had let down. Bruiser and the two other Onorios were on the ground at their feet. The twins were still out cold, Bruiser was pale and bloody but breathing. More relief flooded through me and I dropped down to him. Took his hand. It was colder than normal, but still warmer than my own. “How you doin’?”
He squeezed my hand. Placed a chilled kiss on the back of it. “I’d steal a term from you and say Ducky, but I feel as if you could tell it was a lie, love, so I’ll settle for no longer bleeding. Healing. Edmund fed me. I fed him.”
“Eddie’s a good guy.”